Comprehension instruction system and method for vocabulary training

ABSTRACT

A vocabulary training method calculates frequency and utility scores for vocabulary words in a language. The frequency scores relate to how frequency the words appear in the language while the utility scores relate to how broadly the words are used in the language. The method then groups and ranks the words according to their frequency and utility scores. To gauge a user&#39;s vocabulary knowledge, the method selects words to test the user based on a combination of the frequency and utility scores, or the utility scores alone.

RELATED APPLICATION/PRIORITY CLAIM

This application is a divisional of U.S. patent application Ser. No.13/345,558 filed on Jan. 6, 2012 and entitled “Comprehension InstructionSystem and Method,” which is a continuation of U.S. patent applicationSer. No. 12/019,578 filed on Jan. 24, 2008 and entitled “ComprehensionInstruction System and Method,” which in turn claims the benefit ofpriority under 35 USC 119(e) to U.S. Provisional Patent Application Ser.No. 60/897,414 filed on Jan. 24, 2007 and entitled “ComprehensionInstruction System and Method.” This application is acontinuation-in-part of U.S. patent application Ser. No. 11/430,325filed on May 8, 2006 and entitled “Comprehension Instruction System andMethod,” which in turn claims the benefit of priority under 35 USC119(e) to U.S. Provisional Patent Application Ser. No. 60/679,145 filedon May 9, 2005 and entitled “Comprehension Instruction System andMethod,” and this application is also a continuation-in-part of U.S.patent application Ser. No. 11/347,425 filed on Feb. 2, 2006 andentitled “On-Task Learning System and Method,” the entirety of all ofwhich are incorporated herein by reference.

APPENDIX

Appendix A is a 37 page document that contains the screen shots of amock-up of a software-based training system that embodies the conceptsdisclosed in this application. This appendix forms a portion of thispatent application.

FIELD OF THE INVENTION

The invention relates generally to a computer-implemented system andmethod for educational training and in particular to acomputer-implemented system and method for reading comprehensiontraining. Also, this process is highly impactful for the instruction andimprovement of other areas of reading-related instruction, includingphonics, fluency, high-frequency words and phrases, and vocabulary(including morphology, multiple meaning words, homophones and idioms).

BACKGROUND OF INVENTION

Traditionally, reading comprehension is taught using a first approach, asecond approach or a combination of the two approaches. The firstapproach is not reading comprehension, per se, but instruction in basic,related skills that enable comprehension to take place. For example, tounderstand a passage it is necessary to decode the words effortlessly(so that attention isn't diverted from comprehension), read fluently(that is, recognize the words in the text quickly, accurately, and totranslate them into prosodic units as opposed to words), and know themeanings of the words. It is clearly proven that improving wordrecognition, decoding, reading fluency, and vocabulary knowledge allhave a positive impact on reading comprehension itself.

The other approach is what is usually referred to as comprehensionstrategies instruction. Comprehension strategies instruction explicitlyprovides students with approaches to thinking during reading that havebeen found to improve reading comprehension, at least with low readingcomprehension level readers. Some of the strategies that have beensuccessful include teaching students to summarize text, to engage theirprior knowledge before reading, to question the text, to translate thetext information into graphic form, to use story maps (to summarizenarrative text), and to monitor understanding. These strategies are notskills-based instruction (see below), nor are they teaching activities,but rather they are activities that readers are supposed to carry outduring their reading on an independent basis. Most programs emphasizethe teaching of strategies as the major or sole focus of direct readingcomprehension instruction. These approaches do not, however address themore basic underlying problems of a poor reader and thus it is desirableto provide a reading comprehension system that addresses this limitationof the typical approaches and it is to this end that the presentinvention is directed.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

A comprehension instruction system and method are provided that is a newapproach to teaching reading comprehension. The new approach is based onthe idea that poor readers struggle with more basic aspects ofinformation or language processing than just the gross aspects of payingattention to the big ideas of a text that are focused on with the priorapproaches. The struggle with more basic aspects of information andlanguage processing occur because poor readers may have troubleprocessing language at a more basic “molecular” level.

For example, if a good reader is reading a really hard biology text thathe or she will be tested on, then it makes great sense to read with deepintention using the kinds of strategies or study skills stressed above.However, with most text, good readers do not engage in such substantialeffort of consciously using these reading strategies; rather, goodreaders read the text and process the information seemingly withoutintention, attention, or effort.

That is not the case for poor or struggling readers. That is, theirproblems can be at the “molecular level” of comprehension; theirdifficulty is in grasping the basic concepts imbedded in the words andseeing the relationships among these concepts. One suspects thesestudents do not automatically draw connections among the parts ofsentences and texts in the same way that good readers do. For example,when presented a single sentence like, “Maya feats of engineering areeven more amazing considering that they did it all without wheeledvehicles or draft animals and without metal tools,” a poor reader mightonly be able to tell vaguely that the sentence had something to do withMaya tools or that the Maya were amazing. But if asked, “What did theMayan's do that was so amazing?” or “Why was the Mayan accomplishment soamazing?” they tend to struggle and be unable to provide a coherentanswer. Of course, as sentences are added to the text base, building onand extending this information, even the use of simple pronoun links orreferences are likely to multiply these initial confusions and thestudent is in real trouble.

Studies of the impact of phonics instruction are informative here.Teaching students to decode improves reading achievement includingreading comprehension for children in kindergarten, first, and secondgrade. However, instruction in phonics beyond those grade levelsapparently does not materially improve reading comprehension. Similarly,it has been found that phonics instruction is beneficial to secondlanguage students, but that the effects of such instruction are oflesser benefit to them than for students whose first language isEnglish. Finally, studies of young children find that their vocabularydevelopment and listening skills are not very predictive of theirbeginning reading skills, but are more predictive of later readingachievement.

These findings suggest that reading comprehension, particularly beyondthe second grade level, is highly dependent on oral languagedevelopment. This means that one way to help build reading comprehensionis to further develop students' oral language capacity so that the wordsthey decode will be meaningful (i.e., that they can be matched with thereader's knowledge).

Studies show that children differ dramatically in the amount of directexperience with language they bring to school (it is estimated thatchildren raised in welfare will have about one million words spoken tothem by the time they enter school, while their more advantaged peerswill have experienced about 15 million words). Of course, this suggeststhat students are likely to be deficient in vocabulary and thatincreasing the knowledge of words and concepts will raise readingachievement. This most certainly is correct as various studies haveshown. However, it also suggests that students will struggle with otheraspects of language as well. This has less often been the subject ofresearch, and rarely has been the focus of instructional programs. Thepoint here is that students have trouble not only with words, but withthe relationships among words, as they would have had as littleexperience with this aspect of language as they had with words.

As described above, past responses to reading problems have aimed atimproving decoding and fluency (so these can pose no impediment),providing explicit teaching of vocabulary for this specific text (e.g.,feat), or providing guidance in the use of comprehension strategies (atthe end of reading this section, sum up in your own words what the textsaid). It should be evident that these solutions are not likely to workvery well here, or if they did their benefit would be with this specificpassage rather than with general reading ability.

The reading comprehension system in accordance with the inventionprovides students with a substantial amount of intensive and focusedinstruction and/or practice at the “molecular level,” or in interpretingmicro-relationships among individual words, clauses and sentences underprecisely controlled and varied conditions. This type of training willprovide the user with an understanding of the language at a micro-level.In particular, there are various micro-aspects of language that vary inways that make comprehension easier or harder. By precisely controllingand manipulating these variables (known as language micro-variables),one can provide direct, explicit instruction to develop comprehensionskills that will result in improved reading comprehension, as comparedto previous approaches to teaching comprehension in which related skillsare taught (e.g., vocabulary instruction) or where general thinkingstrategies are taught (e.g., summarizing).

In accordance with the invention, a reading comprehension trainingsystem is provided that has a computing device and a game logic portionthat generates a reading comprehension exercise at a particular skilllevel. The system also has a user interface portion that generates auser interface for the reading comprehension exercise at a particularskill level wherein the user interface for the reading comprehensionexercise at a particular skill level is displayed on the computingdevice. The game logic portion also has a game administrator portionthat adjusts the skill level of the reading comprehension exercise basedon one or more micro-aspects of language that adjust a difficulty levelof the reading comprehension exercise.

In one aspect, a computer-implemented method for vocabulary training maybe provided. The method may include determining, by theprocessor-implemented instruction module, frequency scores forvocabulary words in a language according to how frequently thevocabulary words appear in the language. The method may also includedetermining, by the processor-implemented instruction module, utilityscores for the vocabulary words according to how broadly the vocabularywords are used in the language. The method may further includecategorizing, by the processor-implemented instruction module, thevocabulary words by grouping the vocabulary words into a plurality ofgroups based on the determined frequency scores and ranking thevocabulary words in each group based on the determined utility scores.Further, the method may include generating, by the processor-implementedinstruction module, a vocabulary training exercise to test a student'svocabulary knowledge, wherein the vocabulary training exercise isgenerated by selecting a plurality of vocabulary words from theplurality of groups based on a combination of the frequency scores andutility scores. Additionally, the method may include presenting, by theprocessor-implemented instruction module, the vocabulary trainingexercise to the student. The method may include additional, fewer, oralternate actions, including those discussed elsewhere herein.

In another aspect, a computer-implemented method for vocabulary trainingmay be provided. The method may include determining, by theprocessor-implemented instruction module, utility scores for vocabularywords in a language according to how broadly the vocabulary words areused in the language. The method may also include categorizing, by theprocessor-implemented instruction module, the vocabulary words bygrouping and ranking the vocabulary words into a plurality of groupsbased on the determined utility scores. The method may further includegenerating, by the processor-implemented instruction module, avocabulary training exercise to test a student's vocabulary knowledge,wherein the vocabulary training exercise is generated by selecting aplurality of vocabulary words from the plurality of groups based on theutility scores. Additionally, the method may include presenting, by theprocessor-implemented instruction module, the vocabulary trainingexercise to the student. The method may include additional, fewer, oralternate actions, including those discussed elsewhere herein.

In another aspect, a system for vocabulary training may be provided. Thesystem may include a computing device and a server including a memoryhaving instructions for execution on one or more processors. Theinstructions, when executed by the one or more processors, may cause theserver to determine, by the one or more processors executing one or moreprocessor-implemented instruction modules, frequency scores forvocabulary words in a language according to how frequently thevocabulary words appear in the language. The instructions, when executedby the one or more processors, may also cause the server to determine,by the one or more processors executing one or moreprocessor-implemented instruction modules, utility scores for thevocabulary words according to how broadly the vocabulary words are usedin the language. The instructions, when executed by the one or moreprocessors, may further cause the server to categorize, by the one ormore processors executing one or more processor-implemented instructionmodules, the vocabulary words by grouping the vocabulary words into aplurality of groups based on the determined frequency scores and rankingthe vocabulary words in each group based on the determined utilityscores. Further, the instructions, when executed by the one or moreprocessors, may cause the server to generate, by the one or moreprocessors executing one or more processor-implemented instructionmodules, a vocabulary training exercise to test a student's vocabularyknowledge, wherein the vocabulary training exercise is generated byselecting a plurality of vocabulary words from the plurality of groupsbased on a combination of the frequency scores and utility scores.Additionally, the instructions, when executed by the one or moreprocessors, may cause the server to present, by the one or moreprocessors executing the one or more processor-implemented instructionmodules, the vocabulary training exercise to the student by displayingthe vocabulary training exercise on the computing device. The system mayinclude additional, fewer, or alternate instructions for execution onthe one or more processors, including those discussed elsewhere herein.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

FIG. 1 is a diagram illustrating an exemplary computer-based readingcomprehension training system in accordance with the invention;

FIG. 2 is a diagram illustrating details of the software implementedreading comprehension training system in accordance with the invention;

FIG. 3 is a diagram illustrating further details of the softwareimplemented reading comprehension training system in accordance with theinvention;

FIGS. 4A and 4B are a flowchart illustrating a method for readingcomprehension training in accordance with the invention;

FIG. 5 illustrates an embodiment of the training system in a networkedcomputer environment;

FIG. 6 illustrates an example of a hierarchy of users of a networkedcomputer training system; and

FIG. 7 illustrates a method for question comprehension of the trainingsystem.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF A PREFERRED EMBODIMENT

The invention is particularly applicable to a personal computer-based,software implemented reading comprehension system and method and it isin this context that the invention will be described. It will beappreciated, however, that the invention has greater utility since theinvention may be used with a variety of different computer systems (thathave computing devices) as well as implemented in hardware or softwarewithout departing from the scope of the invention. For example, thecomputer may be a client/server type system, a web-based system, awireless system, a PDA-based system, a network-based system, a mobilephone system or a portable computing device based system. Thecomputer/computing device may also be a device that displays aneducational training exercise, but the computing for the educationaltraining exercise is performed elsewhere or two or more devices thateach perform part of the computing for the computing for the educationaltraining exercise, such as a dumb terminal and a mainframe or computingin the cloud with a terminal. Similarly, the invention can beimplemented as software (as described below), but the software also beembedded into a hardware device or implemented using hardware logic. Thesystem may also be used to train other language-related skills includingreader fluency and vocabulary.

The reading comprehension system and method in accordance with theinvention provides the user with training at a language micro-variablelevel to provide students with a substantial amount of intensive andfocused instruction and/or practice at the “molecular level,” or ininterpreting micro-relationships among individual words, clauses andsentences under precisely controlled and varied conditions. The initiallevel of training can start in one or more different ways. For example,the system may perform an initial assessment of the user to determinethe proper starting point for the training. Or, during otherinstruction, the program may (i) track the instances where a student hasmissed comprehension-type questions about a text or otherwisedemonstrated poor comprehension, (ii) evaluate the structure ormicro-variables contained in the specific language or text that containthe answer that the student missed and (iii) provide micro-comprehensiontraining for the student that matches the kinds of structures thestudent is struggling with. Or, alternatively, a teacher can place theuser at a particular starting point or the system may start each user ata default level. Thus, the system may start at a level of difficulty andthen adjust the difficulty of the training as the user becomes moreproficient or less proficient. In more detail, the various micro-aspectsof language may be varied in ways that make comprehension easier orharder. By precisely controlling and manipulating the micro-aspects oflanguage, the system provides direct, explicit instruction to developcomprehension skills that will result in improved reading comprehension,as compared to previous approaches for teaching comprehension in whichrelated skills are taught (e.g., vocabulary instruction) or wheregeneral thinking strategies are taught (e.g., summarizing).

FIG. 1 is a diagram illustrating an exemplary personal computer-basedreading comprehension training system 10 in accordance with theinvention wherein the personal computer is an example of a computingdevice. In accordance with the invention, the system also may beimplemented on a variety of other, different known computersystems/computing devices that are within the scope of the invention.For example, the system may be implemented as a client/server system, apeer to peer system, a workstation, a mainframe system, networked over acomputer network, such as a LAN or WAN, etc. The exemplary system shownin FIG. 1 may include a display device 12, such as a LCD display, onwhich the training will be displayed to the user, and a chassis 14 thathouses a processing unit 18 that controls the system, a memory 20, suchas a static or dynamic random access memory or flash memory, that holdssoftware and application being currently executed by the processing unitto implement the training system and a persistent storage device 24,such as a hard disk drive, flash memory, optical drive, etc. that storesthe software and applications and retains the data when the power isturned off to the computer system as is well known. Depending on theparticular computer implementation of the system, the elements shown inFIG. 1 may or may not be present in each particular implementation. Inaccordance with the invention, to implement the training system inaccordance with the invention, the memory 20 may store a training tool26 that is executed by the processing unit to implement the readingcomprehension system. The computer system may also include one or moreinput/output devices that permit the user of the system to interact withthe computer system. Those input/output devices may include a printer(not shown), a connection to the Internet or network (not shown), akeyboard 28, a mouse 30 and one or more speakers 32. The computer systemmay also include a sound input device (not shown), such as a microphone,to provide speech recognition and/or a touchscreen (not shown).

In accordance with the invention, the training system software in thepreferred embodiment of the invention may be provided to the computingdevice on a piece of media, such as a CD or memory stick or disk, it maybe preloaded on the computing device, or the software may bedownloaded/communicated over a link to the computing device. Inaccordance with one aspect of the invention, a portion of the trainingsoftware may be communicated to the computing device and executed by theprocessing unit and then additional training modules/portions of thesoftware can be communicated to the computing device at different times.

FIG. 2 is a diagram illustrating details of the software implementedreading comprehension training system in accordance with the inventionand FIG. 3 is a diagram illustrating further details of the softwareimplemented reading comprehension training system in accordance with theinvention. In a preferred embodiment, the training tool comprises aplurality of lines of computer code that are executed by the processingunit. The training tool may be implemented as a single softwareapplication or as a series of interconnected software modules. Thetraining tool may also consist of one or more trainingmodules/segments/assignments that may or may not be resident on thecomputing device when the training tool is used since the trainingmodules/segments/assignments may be communicated to the computing deviceas needed. The training tool 20 further comprises a user interfaceportion 40 and a game logic portion 42 that are executed by theprocessing unit 18 to implement the reading comprehension trainingsystem. The user interface portion 40 may generate the user interface ofthe training presented to the user (See FIG. 3) while the game logic 42performs the other functions of the training system. In the exampleshown in FIG. 2, the user interface portion 40 and game logic portion 42are resident on the personal computer. However, the user interfaceportion 40 and game logic portion 42 may also be split between acomputing device and a server computer in the example of the trainingsystem shown in FIG. 5. Alternatively, the user interface portion 40 andgame logic portion 42 may be located on the server that generates one ormore training user interface web pages that may be communicated to acomputing device on which the user interacts with the training whereinthe responses of the user are communicated back to the server using aknown protocol such as HTTP.

As shown in FIG. 3, the game logic 42 may further include a gameadministrator and scorer module 54, one or more games files 50 and ascores database 52. Thus, the game administrator module may determinethe appropriate training for a particular user, pull that traininggame/module from the game files 50 and then instruct the user interfaceportion 40 to generate the user interface to be displayed to the user.The user may then respond to the training which is captured by thescorer and stored in the scores database 52. The game administratormodule also controls the level of difficulty of the training based onthe response of the user to the current level of difficulty of thetraining as described in more detail below. Generally, the differenttraining provided by the system corresponds to different languagemicro-variables that, when learned, improve the reading comprehension ofthe user.

FIGS. 4A and 4B are a flowchart illustrating a method 60 for readingcomprehension training in accordance with the invention. In this method,the user is presented with a challenge to answer in step 62. Thechallenge involves a reading comprehension problem that contains alanguage micro-variable at a particular level in accordance with theinvention. Examples of these language micro-variables are providedbelow. The challenge has a particular level of difficulty that isadjusted based on the level of proficiency of the user so that thetraining is customizable to the skills of the user. In step 64, the useris prompted to respond to the challenge. The challenge may involve oneor more questions. In step 66, the user indicates his/her response orseries of responses using one or more input devices. In step 68, thetraining system analyzes the response or series of responses andprovides feedback to the user in step 70. In step 71, the systemdetermines if the user should stay at the same level/training in orderto practice. If so, the method loops back to step 62. If not, then instep 72, the system may determine if the level of difficulty of thetraining should be adjusted (increased, decreased or otherwise changed)based on the user response(s). If the level should be increased, thesystem modifies the micro-complexity in step 74 and presents theharder/different challenge to the user. Examples of how the difficultymay be adjusted for several language micro-variables is set forth belowin the text and Table 1. In step 76, if the difficulty should not beincreased, the system determines if the difficulty should be decreasedand can either decrease the level of play in step 78, maintain the samelevel of difficulty or move to a new level of difficulty that is notharder or easier, but is different. When the training is adjusted instep 72, the system may change one or more of the micro-variables at anytime during the training provided to the user.

Now, several examples of the novel language micro-variable used in thetraining system to teach reading comprehension are provided. Theselanguage micro-variables include, but are not limited to, the variablesset forth in Table 1, below. Table 1 below also illustrates examples ofthe difficulty continuum that may be employed by the training system toadjust the level of the training The language micro-variables mayinclude, but are not limited to, verbs, agents, word and relationships.Each of these examples will now be described in more detail.

Micro-Variable for Verbs

A verb plays a central role in comprehension since verbs are the centerof meaning in any sentence. With an understanding of the verb, itbecomes possible to link the agents (or subjects) and the objects to theverb and to each other. Without a good understanding of what verbs arecommunicating in and across sentences, accurate comprehension isvirtually impossible.

Some existing programs may teach the definitions and conjugations ofverbs, recognizing verbs in context and even connecting verbs to agentsand objects (i.e., subjects and predicates). In this invention, however,we precisely control the micro-variables of text. We have identifiedadditional textual variables that impede comprehension. Some exampleswith respect to verbs include: (i) comprehension is harder when the verboccurs later in the sentence than earlier (In the winter we climbed fromthe hollow to Baker's ridge.); (ii) comprehension is harder when thereis more distance between the subject and the verb (Papa spent the wholeday basting the roast goose for mama.); (iii) comprehension is harderwhen there are distractors, like adverbs that make identification of theverb in that sentence ambiguous, or more difficult (see, “spent” in theprevious example); (iv) comprehension is harder when there are multipleverbs in the same sentence (Papa cut a fresh tree up on the ridge, andwe pulled it home on a tin sled.); (v) comprehension is harder whenthere are multiple verbs in the same sentence and there is a singlesubject that is not repeated for the second verb (When we got home, wehung our wet clothes over the stove to dry and warmed ourselves inMama's kitchen.); (vi) comprehension is harder when the verb describes acognitive state (Everything felt special.); (vii) comprehension isharder in cases of questions, or with verbs describing saying, thinkingor believing or in cases of commands (“Read a book,” said Mrs. Quimby.).

Micro-Variable for an Agent

An agent also plays a central role in comprehension since verbs alwayshave agents. The agent is the one who takes action or whose state ofbeing is being described by the verb. Once a student has understood theverb (see examples above), the student must also figure out who or whatis taking this action. As with the verbs, micro-aspects of the text cangreatly impede comprehension of the agents as shown by the followingexamples:

In the winter we climbed from the hollow to Baker's Ridge.

-   -   Who climbed from the hollow to Baker's Ridge?

Our sleds were made from leftover tin used for roofs, and we rode themdown through the woods by moonlight.

-   -   What was made from leftover tin?    -   Who rode the sleds?

When the black creek was frozen, we shared a few skates and everyonetook a turn.

-   -   What was frozen?    -   Who shared a few skates?    -   Who took a turn?

Mother, can I go to the circus?

-   -   Who wants to go to the circus?

As with the verbs above, similar types of micro-variables can beidentified and precisely manipulated for many other aspects of language.In the case of verbs, this type of precise, direct comprehensioninstruction applies to direct objects, and verb modifications of allsorts (e.g., relative clauses, adjectives, adverbs, negatedpropositions, superlatives, comparatives, questions as modifiers, causalverbs as modifiers, etc.).

Micro-Variables Related to Reference

The meaning of some words cannot be interpreted semantically, but makereference to something else for their interpretation. Repeated discoursereferents are a source of coherence in text since it creates a textualweb by making the reader engage in processes that strengthen the linksbetween the parts.

There are three types of words that carry referential meaning inEnglish: personals, demonstratives, comparatives with examples set forthbelow. The reference can be anaphoric or cataphoric. Anaphora means thatthe reference is to preceding text (most examples are anaphoric so thesewill not be labeled as such, but examples of cataphora will be). Tointerpret anaphoric reference, the reader must either hold the semanticreferent in memory which will allow for an immediate satisfaction orcompletion of the reference or must go back to retrieve the referentupon confronting the personal, demonstrative, or comparative in thelater text. Cataphora presents elements that do not seem to link toanything, but then get resolved later by the eventual appearance of thereferent.

Personals: I, me, he, she, they, it, you, we, us, him, her, them, one,mine, yours, ours, hers, him, my, your, our, its, one's. Connections arethrough person: number of people, gender, speaker, spoken to, spokenabout, generalized person. These are links made with pronouns.

Three blind mice, three blind mice. See how they run! See how they run?

-   -   Who are they? (They are three blind mice.) This is a simple        pronoun reference.

The Queen said: ‘Curtsey while you're thinking what to say. It savestime.’ (The reference is to a thing, but not in a narrow sense, it is toa process or complex phenomenon).

-   -   What saves time? (Curtsey at the same time that you are        thinking).    -   This is an extended reference (same as the above example, but it        is more than word matching).

He who hesitates is lost.

-   -   Who is he? (The one who hesitates.)

Demonstratives: There, here, this, these, that, those, the (connectionsare through location on scale of proximity: near, far, neutral)

Doctor Foster went to Gloucester in a shower of rain. He stepped in apuddle right up to his middle and never went there again.

-   -   Where did Doctor Foster never go back to ? (Gloucester).

Comparatives: Another, better, more, less, similar, similarly, likewise,so, such, identically, differently, otherwise, equally, etc.(connections through identity or similarity).

There were two wrens upon a tree. Another came, and there were three.

-   -   What came? (A wren or another wren)

Anaphora:

-   -   we use pronouns to refer to entities in the focus of attention    -   with multiple antecedents contextual cues are needed to        disambiguate a pronoun

Anaphora use is rule driven.

-   -   referents in the discourse focus are more likely to be selected        as the pronoun antecedent than are less discourse relevant        referents    -   referents that are more recently mention are more likely to be        selected as the pronoun referent    -   prior topicalization makes an antecedent more salient

All aspects of language are subject to this identification of themicro-aspects of text that impede comprehension, and then to therigorous, controlled manipulation of each of these variables toidentify, instruct and provide individualized practice for each studentin mastering those text barriers that are impeding his or hercomprehension.

Application of Micro-Variables

As already discussed, there are many micro-aspects to language thatinterfere with a student's ability to comprehend what he or she hasread. For example, typically it is harder to identify an item if itsplacement is varied (at the beginnings, middles, or ends of sentences,for instance) or if it is multiple (e.g., two verbs are harder toidentify than is a single verb), and relationships are harder if theitems that need to be linked are at a greater distance from each otheror if there is intervening information that competes for the link (forexample, it is probably harder to determine who got the watch in asentence like, “Dave gave his brother Tom's watch to Bill” than in asentence like “Dave gave the watch to Bill.”)

In the present invention, the student would start out with a simpleproblem. If he/she succeeds, the training system adds micro complexityand the student is given the harder problem. If the student succeedswith the harder problem, then more micro complexity is added and so on.As mentioned in the table below, one type of complexity is to mixmultiple types of micro-complexity together. In this manner, the systemprecisely isolates the aspects of language that are impeding a student'scomprehension. The program would then target direct instruction on thatparticular aspect of language. As the student becomes more proficient atthat aspect of language, the program would further increase thedifficulty of the challenge, either by making that particular skilllevel harder (e.g., adding even more distance between verb and agent),by presenting aspects of language that the student still has notmastered, or by combining one or more additional language complexitiestogether. The instruction would continue in that fashion from onelanguage construction or syntactic structure to another (or combinationsthereof), with lots of varied practice and review.

Some language constructions will be easier than others (it is easier toidentify a specific element in a sentence such as a subject or a verbthan to interpret a relationship; or concrete items are usually easierto interpret than abstract ones). However, any construct or type ofrelationship will be harder to interpret as we change the context. Table1 indicates some of the varied ways that difficulty can be manipulatedto ensure that a student really can handle the skill.

As discussed above, most work on comprehension these days emphasizes the“strategic” aspects. These are the actions the reader can takeintentionally to try to understand or remember a text. For example,students might be told to translate a text into a graphic image tobetter remember it or to appreciate the inter-relationships among majorconcepts. This kind of a strategy is not to be used automatically, butinstead, the reader is to choose to use this for particular reasonsunder particular conditions. In some ways, it could be thought of as anapproach to studying text, rather than a reading skill.

Skills are different than strategies in that they are to be carried outwith little or no conscious attention. For a good reader, sentenceslike, “John cried.” Or, “The flag is red, white, and blue.” are notparticularly difficult to interpret and probably entail very littleconscious or formal analysis. In other words, the reader might needstrategies to operate on the whole text, but these simple sentences poseso little difficulty they can be interpreted in a skilled manner. Thepurpose of this aspect of the intervention is to develop readingcomprehension as a skilled activity.

Although knowledge of grammar is related to reading, these relationshipshave not been measured frequently and the correlations are notparticularly high. Likewise, the teaching of formal grammar by variousapproaches has not usually had much impact upon reading comprehension.Methods of instruction that have been effective in this regard havetypically focused on the meaningful interpretation and construction oflanguage (such as sentence combining activities), rather than the studyof grammatical forms. These findings are consistent with thepsychological studies of Walter Kintsch and the linguistic analyses ofMichael Halliday and Ruquaiya Hasan: “By contrast to substitution, whichis a grammatical relation, reference is a semantic relation.” Theimplications of this distinction in their example means that therelations being described in a language do not need to be constrained bygrammatical conditions such as matching parts of speech and that what isfocused on more than structural properties of language are semantic ormeaning relations. This means that a sound program of comprehensioninstruction will engage students deeply in interpreting the meaning oftext; not in the most global or macular terms alone (what was the textabout?), but in much more specific terms that require the interpretationof all of the myriad ideas in the text. The training system aims tointensively “pattern” student interpretation of language so that theyare able to automatically envision the meanings of words and therelationships among meanings of words.

TABLE 1 Examples of Difficulty Continuum Reading Level: The difficultyof the text itself - in terms of sentence complexity or vocabularychallenge can influence how well a skill can be executed. If a text isat a 3^(rd) grade level, then a student will be more likely to be ableto execute a particular skill than he or she could if the text werewritten at the 5^(th) grade level. This can apply to grade levels ofK-12 and beyond. Kindergarten 1^(st) grade 2^(nd) grade . . . 12^(th)grade and beyond Amount of Text: It is generally easier to carry out atask with a small amount of text than with a larger amount as this otherinformation can overwhelm or distract the reader and it creates moreopportunities for error (eg, linking to the wrong information, gettingtripped up by a vocabulary term). Short sentence Longer sentenceParagraph Larger pieces of text (such as multiple paragraphs, a page,multiple pages, sections and multiple sections) Varied Practice: It isharder to execute a skill when it has to be one of several skillsapplied than when it is the only skill that is being exercised. Allpractice items emphasize a Items require a choice among two or moreparticular concept, relationship, or skill. concepts, relationships, orskills (the greater the number of choices, the harder it will be toexecute). Varied Context: It is harder to identify an element when itappears in multiple places within a sentence or when it appears invarious forms. Beginning of sentence Middle of sentence End of sentenceIdentical element Similar element Element seems quite different from theNo competing element Competing element, Competing element that butdissimilar could create ambiguity or confusion Varied Distance: It isharder to draw a relationship between two elements when there is agreater distance between them, or when there are competing elements thatseem attractive as potential links. Contiguous elements Elementsseparated by a Elements separated by a small distance great distance Nocompeting elements Competing elements but Competing elements are noambiguity (perhaps the potentially ambiguous items differ from the linkin (need to rely on meaning terms of number or number) alone to make thelink) Recognition-Construction: It is easier to pick the right answerthan to construct one, it is easier to select a correct answer whenthere are few choices than when there are many, and the more similarityamong the choices the harder. Recognition Construction

FIG. 5 illustrates an embodiment of a training system 110 in a networkedcomputer environment that includes one or more computing devices 112that are capable of connecting to a link 114 so that the one or morecomputing devices 112 may communicate with a central training unit 116.Each computing device 112 a, 112 b, 112 n may be a computer-based systemwith sufficient connectively to the link, computing power and memory tostore and execute the user interface portion and game logic (or someportion thereof) or sufficient connectively to the link, computing powerand memory to execute a browser application that can permit the user tointeract with web pages containing the training communicated to thecomputing device (when the user interface portion and game logic areexecuted by the central computer). Each computing device may be, forexample, a laptop computer, tablet computer, handheld computer, pocketPC, PDA, wireless email device, mobile phone and the like. In apreferred embodiment, the central training unit 116 may be one or moreserver computers. In a preferred embodiment of the invention, thecomputing devices communicate with the central training unit over awireless network, but may also communicate over any other knowncommunications path such as a cellular network, wired computer networksuch as a local area network or a wide area network or a wirelesscomputer network so that the invention is not limited to any particulartype of communications path. The computing device may have similarcomponents to those shown in FIG. 1. The central training unit 116 maybe coupled to a storage unit 118 that stores the data and informationfor the training system.

In this networked environment, the user interface portion 40 and gamelogic 42 may be stored and executed on each computing device 112 whereinthe results are communicated to the main training unit. In someembodiments, the main training unit may communicate other trainingmodules to each computing device. Alternatively, the user interfaceportion 40 and game logic 42 may be stored in the data storage unit 118and may be executed by the central training unit 116 that generates eachtraining/problem/challenge and communicates the training exercise, suchas by a web page, to each computing device that displays the trainingexercise, such as by using a browser application, so that the user ofeach computing device interacts with the training and the user'sresponses are communicated back to the central training unit 116 thatthen determines how (if at all) to adjust the training as describedabove.

As shown in FIGS. 1 and 5, the system is available on a variety ofdelivery platforms, including an application service provider (ASP)platform and a local area network/wide area network (LAN/WAN) platformsboth of which are described above with reference in FIG. 5. The trainingsystem also, at any time that a LAN/WAN customer wishes to convert overto the ASP version of the program, permits the LAN/WAN databases thatare on servers all over the country to be virtually and seamlesslyintegrated into the then-current database used in the main ASP versionof the program so that conversion between the platforms is more easilyaccomplished.

In addition, various different people may use the system includingstudents and other individuals who may wish to evaluate or impact theinstruction of one or more students, as well as individuals who may wishto view reports based on student, class, grade, school, region,district, etc. Accordingly, in accordance with the invention, the“users” of the system may include students, teachers, educationspecialists (like reading specialists and special education teachers),school principals, district administrators, district superintendents,technical, administrators, parents, etc.

In accordance with the invention, the users of the system may beorganized in a hierarchy for the training system. An example of ahierarchy for a training system installed at a state educational agencyis shown in FIG. 6. The system may have a hierarchy 120 that has one ormore levels of granularity. The example of the hierarchy for the stateeducational agency shown in FIG. 6, the hierarchy may include a statelevel 122 (at the top of this exemplary hierarchy), a district level124, a school level 126 and a class level 128. The hierarchy permits thesystem to categorize users of the system based on their level in thehierarchy and therefore be able to parse and report data appropriatelyand accurately. In general, each hierarchy for each installation of thetraining system is going to be unique since, in the example shown inFIG. 6, the number of schools, the names of the schools, regions,districts, etc. will likely be unique for each installation. Thehierarchy will permit, among other things, for the system to provideproper roll-up reports at various levels of the hierarchy and for theparticular districts, schools, etc. that are part of the particularhierarchy. The hierarchy also permits the training system to properlydetermine the permissions of a particular user based on the level of theuser in the hierarchy. For example, the principal of one school shouldnot have access to the data generated at another school, whereas thesuperintendent of the district may wish to have access to data generatedanywhere within his or her district. Unlike typical systems, thetraining system may be shipped to a customer with the hierarchypre-built and loaded into the system to make the integration andinstallation process easier for the customer. The training system mayalso be populated with the names of all the applicable districts,regions, schools and other data applicable to the customer. Not onlydoes it greatly reduce the burden imposed on the customer, but itpermits the customer and other appropriate users to create and viewreports that accurately roll-up to all the different possible levelswithin the public school system, private school systems (e.g., Catholicand other parochial schools), BIA schools, etc.; while ensuring thateach user has access limited to their appropriate permissions asdetermined by their level of seniority in the hierarchy.

In addition to the language micro-variable instruction set forth above,the training system may further comprise questioning comprehension, masscustomized homework, instructional efficiency, a vocabulary selectionmethod, vocabulary instruction, a method for vocabulary inferredmeaning, built-in instruction and review, varying the amount of text inthe questions, race consciousness support, English as a second languagesupport, idiom training, phonics meta-intelligence, fluency testconstruction, recorded fluency dialog, a unique scoring method, dozesentence training, a typing interface, an assessment methodology andhigh frequency phrases training, each of which is described in moredetail below.

In the vocabulary training, the system may also ask the student toidentify words from a list of words that the student believes that thestudent already knows and; based on the student's self-assessment, apre-test is dynamically generated to evaluate the depth of the student'sexisting knowledge only with respect to the words he/she identified asalready being mastered. In the pre-test, words that the students hasindicated he/she does not already know are not assessed. In thevocabulary training, the system may also present either a pre-test orinitial training exercises with words from a pool of target words thatinitially are assumed to be un-mastered by the student. The vocabularytraining exercise, based on the results of the pre-test or the initialtraining exercises, sorts the words from the pool of target words onto amastered list or un-mastered list by the student and are dynamicallyplaced accordingly either onto a mastered or un-mastered (instructional)word list. The vocabulary training exercise also presents words from themastered words list, if any, at a lower frequency than the words pulledfrom the un-mastered the mastered word list is answered incorrectly,presents that same word will again at the next opportunity (in adifferent format or type of question).

The vocabulary training exercise, if the student incorrectly answersquestions related to that specific word pulled from the mastered wordlist more than a specified number of times, removes the word from themastered word list and is placed on the un-mastered (instructional) wordlist, and as such will subsequently be presented to the student at thehigher frequency rate as an un-mastered word. The vocabulary trainingexercise also presents words from the un-mastered (instructional) wordslist at a higher frequency than the words on the mastered words list.The vocabulary training exercise if questions relating to a word pulledfrom the un-mastered (instructional) word list are answered correctly(in a variety of formats/types of questions) a specified number oftimes, then the word is deemed to be mastered and moved to the masteredword list. In the vocabulary training exercise, the words moved onto themastered word list will still be queried, now at the lower frequencyrate associated with the mastered word list, until such time as thestudent has placed the specified number of words from the total wordpool in that unit onto the mastered word list, and the vocabularytraining associated with that unit is deemed mastered & complete.

FIG. 7 illustrates a method 130 for question comprehension of thetraining system. The ability to generate a question while reading is animportant comprehension strategy since a good reader, while reading,will often summarize for themselves what they have just read. In part,the good reader accomplishes this by asking themselves questions aboutwhat they have read and the answering the questions. For good readers,this process of framing questions and then answering them is often doneseamlessly, such that the formulation of the questions is subsumed bythe answer/summary experience. For a good reader, there is often notmuch conscious attention on asking themselves, “How do I know whatquestion to ask myself?” The answers that good readers generate whilereading provides an ongoing summary of what is going on in the reading,which is the foundation upon which additional comprehension is built asreading proceeds. However, before struggling readers can even reasonablybe expected to learn how to summarize during reading, they must firstlearn how to frame the questions that they should ask themselves withrespect to specific texts. It is important for these students to learnhow to know what questions they should be asking themselves, how toidentify appropriate and important questions in relation to the materialbeing read.

To facilitate this learning of the questioning process, the trainingsystem may include a module, preferably implemented as a piece ofsoftware code, that implements the method for questioning as acomprehension strategy shown in FIG. 7. Thus, in step 132, while thestudent is reading a particular portion of text, the training systempresents a student with a question, such as “What question is a goodquestion to ask here?,” that asks the student to identify what would bea good question to ask him or herself (in step 134) in relation to thatparticular portion of the text (such as “Who is this passage about?” or“When did this happen?,” etc.) wherein the correct answer to the goodquestion provides a best summary of the particular portion of the text.The training system may provide the student with one or more differentquestions from which to select the best question. In step 136, thetraining system determines if the student has chosen the correctquestion. If the student has selected the correct question, then themethod goes to step 142 in which the student is then asked to provide aresponse to the correct question selected by the user which causes thestudent to summarize the particular portion of text.

In certain applications of this activity, if the student does not selectthe correct question, the training system may narrow the target text. Inparticular, the student is directed back to the particular portion oftext and the attention of the student is focused on a smaller portion ofthe particular text. The student is then asked to select the correctquestion and the training system determines if the student selects thecorrect question in step 140. If the user selects the correct question,then the training system goes to step 142 as described above. If not thetext is again narrowed (with the key text highlighted this time) and thestudent is again asked to identify the correct question. If the studentstill cannot identify the correct question, the training system providesthe correct question to the student. In this process, students aretaught not only how to summarize while reading, but also how todetermine, based on the text being read, what are appropriate questionsto ask themselves. The proper formulation of appropriate questions are aprerequisite to teaching a struggling reader how to independently beginto summarize information while reading.

The automated process in the system described above is employed in avariety of contexts in the system. In many circumstances, a student ispresented some type of challenge; it may be in the questioning contextdescribed above, or in a variety of other contexts. In any case, thesechallenges will relate in some fashion to a text or a portion of a text.Typically, the answer to the challenge is contained in a portion of thetext or can be derived from a portion of the text. If a student ispresented with a challenge, the system may return the student to thetext, with a portion of the text highlighted or otherwise called out.The highlighted (or otherwise called-out) text contains relevantinformation (e.g., the answer to the challenge). It serves as a clue tohelp direct the student's attention to the relevant text to review orsearch. If the student requires more help, (for example, still respondsincorrectly), the system can again return the student to the text, butthis time highlighting an even smaller portion of the text. This processcan continue one, two or any number of times, progressively calling outsmaller and smaller sections of text, thereby focusing more and moreclosely on the exact text that provides the clue or answer. Ultimately,only the correct answer contained in the text may be highlighted. Thistext may also be accompanied by supporting information (textual, audioor other) explaining why the highlighted text was the appropriate textfor the student to have identified.

Similarly, this process is also used in the context of correct answers.For example, where a student is challenged to make an inference from thetext and does so correctly, he/she may be returned to the text with aportion highlighted, and instructed to click on the text that providedhim or her with the clues necessary for him/her to have made the correctinference.

Now, the mass customized homework of the training system is described inmore detail.

The training system may permit a teacher to automatically generatemass-customized homework sheets for each student. The mass-customizedhomework sheets may be generated for all types of training/instruction(vocabulary training, phonics training, comprehension instruction,fluency instruction, high-frequency words instruction, high-frequencyphrases instruction, etc.) that is provided by the training system sothat each training module (that may preferably be a piece of softwarecode) may include the function of generating the mass-customizedhomework sheets. To illustrate this mass-customized homework sheets ofthe training system, an example of the mass-customized homework sheetsfor vocabulary training is provided. The training system is aware thatevery student (at an installation in an elementary school, for example)must do vocabulary training, but that each student may be working on adifferent set of vocabulary words, based on his or her own ability,placement and progress. Moreover, even within the same lists ofvocabulary words, the training system tracks which of these words eachstudent has “mastered” and which words the student has not yet“mastered.” Thus, in many cases, even within the same lists of words,students will be focusing on different words within that list. Thedetails of the mass customization process is described in more detail inU.S. patent application Ser. No. 11/347,425 filed on Feb. 2, 2006 andentitled “On-Task Learning System and Method” which is incorporatedherein by reference.

Since the training system has information on each student and his/herlevel of each type of training, such as vocabulary, the training systemallows the teacher to print out a particular homework assignment for allstudents with each student's specific homework being unique. In thiscase, for example, the teacher may print out a sheet for each studentwith the same assignment to go home and write a sentence using each ofthe vocabulary words on the sheet. However, every student's sheet isunique to that student based on the variables described above so thatthe assignment sheet has a unique set of words for each student. Thus,all students can have the same homework assignment, yet it may be thatno two sheets are identical as each sheet has been customized for thespecific instruction appropriate for that individual students at thatvery point in time. Now, the instructional efficiency of the trainingsystem is described in more detail.

The training system may provide training and instructions that increasesa student's time-on-task. The training system increases the time-on-taskof the student by finding more time for instruction and practice (e.g.,extending learning into the home), substituting time (e.g., reducinginstructional time in one area where there is little need and increasinginstructional time in another where the need is greater) or improvingthe efficiency of the time already being spent on this topic. Thetraining system ensures that the student is working on the areas ofinstruction that he/she needs (e.g., accurate assessment and placement),and is getting maximum efficiency/return from the time he spends in theprogram (granularity and/or real-time instructional adjustment duringlearning). As with the mass-customized homework, the time-on-taskfunctions of the training system may be used with all of thetraining/instructions of the training system. For purposes ofillustration, an example for vocabulary training is described.

For vocabulary training, the student is placed in the vocabularytraining based on the results of certain, targeted instruction. Based onthat placement, certain additional assessments are used to determinewhether there are any gaps that require antecedent remediation prior tothe student's placement in the overall remediation program. However,once the student is finally placed and program instruction begins, anentire other layer of methods to maximize time-on-task of the student isemployed. In particular, for each unit of the training, the student'smastery of the words for that individual unit are evaluated and, onceinstruction begins, the student's responses are tracked on aword-by-word basis. Then, either as a result of the unit assessment oras a result of the student's responses demonstrating “mastery” for anindividual word, each such “mastered” word is taken off the“instructional” list (of the particular words for the particularstudent) and moved to the “mastered word” list so that the trainingsystem is continuously adjusting the training provided to ensure thatthe training is customized to each student. During the vocabularytraining, the training system draws from the instructional list (ofwords for the vocabulary training) to ensure that the student isprimarily spending his efforts on words he does not know.

To further the time-on-task training, the training system ensures thatthe student, once the student has mastered a word, continue to beaccountable for retaining knowledge of that mastered word. Accordingly,while the training system instruction draws primarily from theinstructional pool, it will simultaneously mix in words randomly fromthe mastered word list, but at a significantly lower rate per word thanfor the words in the instructional word pool. In this manner, theprogram is not only targeting the student's time and attention on thespecific vocabulary instruction that the student needs the most, suchindividualization and customization occurs in real time, matchingimmediately to the learning that is going on in that instant. At thesame time, the training system instruction provides subtle ongoingreview and accountability for material that the student has alreadymastered, to ensure that this knowledge is retained and applied. If atany time, one of the randomly-selected mastered words is mixed into theinstructional list and is missed, that word is retained in the very nextcycle as one of the review/mastered words. If that mastered word ismissed a second time in a row, it is removed from the mastered list andplaced back into the instructional pool, until such time as mastery isdemonstrated again for that word. Now, a method for vocabulary selectionof the training system is described in more detail.

The training system in accordance with the invention may include a novelmethod for selecting the vocabulary words used by the training system.Typically, instructional programs select vocabulary words by one or twodifferent methodologies including: 1) creating text or repurposeexisting texts for use in the program and then review the texts forwords that someone thinks will be interesting to the target student anduse those words; or 2) the programs will refer to other materials thatreflect the grade levels that words are typically taught to students bythe large education publishers. The problem with this second approach isthat it is fundamentally the same as the first approach. The largeeducation publishers have generally employed the same subjectivecriterion for what words to teach when. A consensus is then built aseach subsequent publisher relies on the judgments of each otherpublisher. The fundamental flaw in these two approaches is that astudent's knowledge of one word does not provide meaningful informationthat would allow one to extrapolate whether a student knows any othergiven word. For example, if one determines that a student knows the word“garage,” it provides no reasonable basis for determining whether thatstudent also knows the word “loft.” In fact, from a phonics developmentperspective, the word “loft” is easier to decode, yet the word “loft”may very well be less likely to have made it into a student's vocabularythan the word “garage.” On the other hand, if a student does know theword “loft,” on what basis can one assume that this student knows theword “garage”?

In the training system, a different approach for selecting thevocabulary words is used. In particular, in developing this system,studies of word frequencies in the English language were reviewed andevaluated. Specific words were identified and grouped according tolanguage acquisition and instructional patterns. Through this process,word-frequency bands were developed for each grade level and for rangeswithin each grade level. During this process, the frequency variationsamong these word bands were found to be statistically significant. Inthe end, word frequency bands were developed for each grade level andfor ranges within each grade level. English language words were thengrouped into these bands according to the frequency with which theyoccur in the English language.

For example, words that typically occur in the language of secondgraders typically have a word frequency value (SFI) of between 57.99 and54; third grade SFI is from 53.99 to 50.0; fourth grade SFI is from49.99 to 48; and fifth grade SFI is from 47.99 to 46. Note, that thesecond grade band was truncated at the top end of the SFI to preventwords that were “too frequent” (that is, too easy) from being includedin the instructional pool. (Note, the pool was further scrubbed toseparate out things like proper nouns, peoples' names, etc.).

Next, these words were screened for utility. It is important to know notonly what words might be appropriate at a certain grade level (based onfrequency), but—especially for struggling students—it is desirable toknow what words are useful. Given two words of the same frequency rate,it was deemed that the word that could be used in more settings, in manydifferent contexts, was more useful that the word that was equallyfrequent, but could be used in fewer contexts.

In previous studies, words have been evaluated for how limited or broadis their use in language. That is to say, some words are narrow in theiruse (e.g., “election” might be useful primarily in discussions aboutgovernance) while other words may be broad in their use (e.g., “balance”might occur across diverse areas of interest—science, history, math,current events). This measure of “pervasiveness” ranges in value from 0to 1.0, with the higher numbers being more broadly applicable, or morepervasive.

This research was then applied to the words previously organized intothe grade-leveled frequency word bands described above. Only words witha “pervasiveness” value of 0.6 or greater were retained.

As a result, an instructional word pool containing thousands of wordswas developed that selected words for usefulness, and organized themaccording to frequency bands tied to appropriate grade-levels forinstruction. These words were then incorporated into the texts as theywere being created (rather than identified in texts post-hoc after theyalready existed).

As a result of this novel process for selecting the vocabulary words,the training system can make reasoned judgments and extrapolations aboutand from words. In other words, if a student already knows the word“garage” and several other words that occur in language at the samefrequency as the word “garage,” we can now gauge how much languageexposure this student has had; and it stands to reason that other wordsthat are comparably pervasive and equally frequent in language arelikely also known by that student. It would then be appropriate to movethe student up to the next set of words that occur slightly lessfrequently in the English language and evaluate (and if appropriateinstruct) that student on these slightly less frequent words. Thus, thesystem can select vocabulary words used by the training system based onword-frequency bands for grade levels and ranges within grades. Themethod for selecting the words may include word pervasiveness. Theeducational training system also can use frequency and pervasivenessdata in connection with words that a student currently knows (or doesnot know) to make reasoned predictions based on this data as to theamount of language exposure that student has had and what other wordsthat student likely does (or does not) already know.

A similar approach has been implemented for Morphology instruction,another aspect of Vocabulary instruction in the system. While certainprograms provide morphology instruction, no discernible methodology canbe identified for the process by which the morphemes were selected. Itappears that the process is typically similar to the way many programsidentify words for Vocabulary instruction. In contrast, this systemreflects additional research about the English language; namely, 29prefixes make up 97% of the all the prefixes used in English (based onnumbers of words that have prefixes, and number that have theseparticular prefixes as drawn out of a corpus of more than 5 millionwords). Moreover, 20 suffixes account for 93% of all words that havesuffixes in English. Accordingly, this frequency data has been used todevelop the compilation of appropriate morphological units about whichto provide instruction.

One particular process for Morphology instruction in the programpresents a student with a word. The student is directed to consider theword and identify any one or more recognizable morphemes, and thendivide the word into its morphological components. The student is thentasked with identifying the meaning of the one or more morphologicalcomponents of the word. (If certain of the morphological units is not asubject of the instruction, the meaning of those units may be providedto the student.). Based on the meanings of the component morphemes thatthe student has identified, the student is then challenged to make areasoned judgment on what the word itself likely means.

In the case of vocabulary training, struggling readers often develop avariety of compensatory strategies. In the context of Vocabularyprograms, one strategy is for the student to match definitions to theircorresponding target (or vocabulary) word by matching key words of thedefinition to the target word, rather than actuallyunderstanding/knowing the meaning of the word. For example, the word“ecstatic” might have the definition of “very, very happy.” Rather thanlearning what the meaning of “ecstatic” is, a student might simplyremember that the word “ecstatic” goes with the definition that has“very very” in it. To prevent this compensation strategy and encouragethe student to focus on the meaning of the word, the training system mayhave multiple versions of each definition of a vocabulary word wherein asingle definition is stated in multiple ways using different words inthe definition. For example, the word “ecstatic” might have thedefinition of “very, very happy” and “state of rapture” which are twodifferent expressions of the same definitions (compare two differentdefinitions for the word “bank”—place to keep money vs. edge of ariver). (Note, the program, under other conditions—e.g., the teaching ofwords with multiple meanings—may also provide multiple definitions of aword, like “bank.” The student might be presented with one version ofthe definition at certain times when learning the new word, and may bepresented with other expressions of the same definition at other times.Moreover, yet another expression of the definition might be used onfinal assessments. In this way, the student will not be able to get thecorrect answers simply by matching key words in the definition to thetarget word, but rather will have to associate the meaning of thedefinition to the target word.

The training system may also provide the student with a methodical,step-by-step process for tackling unfamiliar words. A number of existingprograms tell students that inferring meaning is important—look atother, known words that might help you guess the meaning of the unknownword—but do not provide a systematic approach to handling the unknownwords. The training system (at skill-appropriate levels), teachesstudents that they should (i) consider what the passage is about, (ii)look for other, known words that might provide a clue about the unknownword, (iii) look at the word itself for (morphological) clues and (iv)consider the subjective or connotative aspects of the passage. It isimportant that the student come to understand that this step-by-stepstrategy needs to be applied flexibly, and that all four of these stepswon't always help. Accordingly, the training system is designed suchthat, on occasion, the strategy the student is invited to employ will beonly partially effective, and sometimes may not work at all. Sometimesstrategies, even in properly employed, are ineffective. The trainingsystem may provide the student with training of this methodology as wellas how to use the methodology since it may not work each time and thestudent needs to be aware that the methodology does not always work.

The training system may also have a unique training structure thatincludes instruction with built-in, in-unit reviews, as well as reviewsthat automatically integrate content from across multiple units. Forexample, the training system may include training for one or more gradelevels (2nd, 3rd, 4th and 5th grade level for example) with each gradelevel containing the same number of themes (such as six themes) whereineach of the themes in each grade has its own grade-appropriatesub-theme. For example, if the theme is “Nature,” the 2nd grade subthememight be “Rainforests” while the 3rd grade subtheme might be “EndangeredAnimals” and the 4th grade subtheme might be “Natural Disasters,” suchas tornadoes. Each subtheme for each grade level has a video relating tothat sub-theme and four training units. Each training unit contains apassage that ties to the sub-theme associated with the particular unit.In the preferred embodiment, the first three passages of the subtheme(the 1^(st) three units) are all instructional and present new,instructional information to the student. Each unit also containsbuilt-in review to reaffirm and re-enforce the mastery achieved withinthose units. In addition to the in-unit review and re-enforcement thatthe training contains, the fourth unit of each subtheme is dedicated toproviding review and re-enforcement of the content the student hasmastered in the previous three units. This training structure ensuresthat students demonstrate mastery of mastered content, and that thisdemonstrated mastery occur on multiple occasions, and over time so thatthe mastery of the content does not fade. In order to avoid repeatingknown items for a student, the training may also contain “earlyadvancement review triggers,” so that within units and across units, astudent who has demonstrated exceptionally high or robust levels ofmastery will be asked to spend less time on review and re-enforcement,and in fact, under certain conditions, can skip the review unitsaltogether.

Each unit in the training structure above may have multiple levels ofdifficulty and a user/student has to show mastery at the hardest levelto complete each unit. Each level may include iterations of trainingthat must be completed. As described above with reference to FIGS. 4Aand 4B, the user/student can do well on a level and move up a level, dopoorly on a level and move down a level or do average on a level andrepeat the level so that the training adjusts to the user's skills. Toencourage the completion of a level and/or a unit, the training systemawards bonus/completion points to complete a level and its iterations,bonus/completion points when the level is increased and unit completionpoints when a unit is completed. The user/student is made aware of thesebonus/completion points in order to provide the user/student withadditional motivation to complete the levels and units wherein thepoints can be converted into gems as described below in more detail.

The training system may also vary the amount of text in each questionsince one of the ways students improve reading skills is to have morepractice reading. Aside from the texts the students are asked to read,by controlling and varying (gradually increasing) the amount of text ineach of the questions, the student is subtly being given more readingpractice, and the reading of the questions themselves becomes part ofthe adaptive reading instruction. Moreover, some students may experiencelower levels of motivation while reading text passages. It is notevident that any particular segment of text will be relevant to theirability to score well on the questions related to that text. Incontrast, students may experience higher levels of motivation to readand understand the text in the questions themselves, as it is clear thatunderstanding this text will be critical to the student's ability tosuccessfully answer that question. Accordingly, the training systemmakes use of the potentially higher student motivation and uses thequestions themselves to subtly provide students additional readingpractice.

The training system may also provide positive racial images to thestudents training with the system since there have been studies thatindicate that, for members of certain racial groups in the UnitedStates, such individuals will tend to perform better or worse in testingenvironments based on subtle messages suggesting negative assumptions orstereotypes, or even settings that simply remind the student of race(given the many issues that race implicates in America and many othercountries). For example, a form that simply asks a student to indicatethe racial group of which he/she is a member can lead to poorerperformance by African American students. Accordingly, the trainingsystem may employ certain techniques to turn this research to thebenefit of the student, namely to present positive racial images and toremind the student of his or her sense of pride, competence, history,heritage and confidence that can be drawn from his ethnic and racialheritage. For example, before each training unit, a student can select ashort snippet reminding that student of recent and historicalachievements of people that are ethnically or racially similar to thestudent.

The training system may also permit the teacher to indicate whether astudent is an English Language Learner (ELL), and—if so—what language isthe student's home language. Based on these (and in some cases, someadditional variables), the training system may automatically adapt allof the starting levels of each of the activities to provide additionalsupports, alternative flows, and modified instructional templates, alldesigned specifically to support the needs of an ELL student. Thetraining system may also adapt the training based on knowledge thatpeople with a non-English home language (such as Spanish) might havedifficulty with particular sounds in the English language (e.g.,differentiating /d/ from /th/). Thus, the system may have an EnglishLanguage Learner (“ELL”) module which makes predictive adjustments, andautomatically adapts the starting levels of the activities to providesupports, alternative flows and modified instructional templates tosupport the unique needs of the ELL student; for example, the programmay automatically insert into the student's phonics instruction modulescontrasting English sounds that often are confused by native speakers ofthat child's native language. If the child is a native Spanish speaker,the program might, for example, provide additional phonics instructioncontrasting /d/ and /th/, whereas if the student is a native Japanesespeaker, the program might instead automatically provide instructionalmodules contrasting /r/ and /l/.

Another instructional progression that is particularly helpful forcertain ELL students is as follows: (i) showing a word, with a pictureof that word right underneath it, and an audio pronunciation of the wordavailable upon clicking on the image; (ii) scrambling the word and theimage/audio so that they are no longer aligned, and the student mustmatch them (matching text and image/audio); (iii) the same as “(ii)”above, except that no audio is available—scrambled images and words only(matching text and image); and (iv) replacing the image with a writtendefinition, so that the student is required to match the word to theappropriate definition (matching text-to-text). Also, a step or stepsmay be added where the image and the textual definition are matchedand/or scrambled.

If a student is identified in the system as an ELL student, the systemmay automatically customize the flow/order of the instructionaltraining, the content offered to the student (as described above), andthe supports available to the student (for example, audio supports maybe available to the student in both English and in his or her homelanguage), etc.

The training system may provide idiom instruction to the student. Theidiom instruction may include an “idiom history” support, that providesan historical or logical explanation to help the student remember themeaning that the particular idiom is intended to communicate. Forexample, the idioms “bought the farm” means that someone died. Itsorigin comes from the fact that, during WWI, when a soldier died thegovernment would provide the soldier's family with enough money to buy afarm. These historical origins of idioms, as well as other mnemonicdevices for remembering their meaning, will be integrated into the idiominstruction.

The training system may also provide phonics meta-intelligence. Inparticular, the errors that a student makes in reading and/or spellingprovides an indication of the phonics rules that the student has notmastered. However, other patterns in these phonics errors can beidentified to provide deeper insights into patterns among thesepatterns. Accordingly, certain combinations of error patterns can beanalyzed and evaluated, and used to conclude that the student may bestruggling not because of a failure of a particular phonics rule; butrather, because that student is likely familiar with the sounds ofanother language or language pattern. Accordingly, these meta-patternanalyses can be used to adjust the learning path, and the instructionaltargets and foils to tailor the training/instruction to a particularstudent who is demonstrating confusions typical of students who, forexample, are more familiar with the sounds of the Spanish language thanwith the sounds of English. Accordingly, a specific sorting activity maynow be presented to this student that he/she would not have previouslyseen. However, more importantly, the training system knows that certaintarget/foil combinations are more critically important for thesestudents, so (in the case of a Spanish language sound pattern) thestudent will be contrasting /d/ and /th/ sounds, or letters “e” and“a”—as these are sounds and letters often confused by such students.Similarly, these intelligence can be used to identify and intervene in asimilarly customized fashion for students who may come from a home whereAfrican American Vernacular English (AAVE) is spoken; similarly, certainletters and sounds are typically confused, switched or substituted insuch cases.

Accordingly, not only is the instruction modified/individualized totarget more heavily the areas of instruction that the child isstruggling with, but the program can further modify the instruction forthe student to provide instruction in areas where the student has notyet shown deficits but that tend to be highly correlated with the typesof errors that student has already made.

The training system also permits the student to construct his ownfluency texts. One of the ways to get a student engaged in a text is forthat student to have a sense of investment in the text. One way that thetraining system has developed to help create student investment is topermit the student to essentially “create” the text himself. Although itis desirable for a student to create a text, it is often a challenge fora struggling student to write a text at all, much less come to feelconnected to that text. Moreover, under certain circumstances, it isdesirable to control the themes of a text or words used in a text toensure that the works remain appropriate for the educational setting andage group. In addition, it is also difficult to have a student create atext because to do so often requires the student to type a text whichimposes additional hurdles and distractions. To assist the student increating text, the training system presents the student withpre-existing texts, songs, poems and the like. These texts can bepre-assembled, partially assembled, or completely disassembled in, forexample, a bank of stanzas, sentences or other chunks of text. Each ofthese items has corresponding fluent-reading audio associated with it.This program enables the student to re-arrange phrases, clauses,sentences, stanzas, etc. to create his own unique, custom,individualized text of his own creation. And, after havingre-arranged/“re-written” a passage, the audio files associated with eachportion of text are maintained so that, once the passage has beencreated, the student can actually hear a reading of the new text he hascreated. This fluent reading audio then provides a model for thestudent, as he practices reading fluently his own creation.

The training system may also train the student with recorded fluencydialog wherein some of the texts that are part of the training systemmay be in the form of dialogs, interviews, skits, etc. with two or morereaders. The training system provides the student with a model readingof the dialog and, when the student is ready, the student reads theroles of one of the speakers while the training system provides thereadings of the other characters. The training system may use amicrophone that is part of the computer system so that the user canrecord himself in one of the roles and, after he has recorded himself,he can listen to his reading with the computer-delivered dialogintegrated into the recorded dialog. The student thereby can listen tohis own recording in the context of the multi-person dialog and comparepacing, flow, etc. In the meantime, another student may be doing thesame thing, but playing the other role in the dialog. The trainingpermits each student to practice and rehearse the dialog in private andthen, when both of the students are sufficiently comfortable andprepared, they can perform the dialog with each other, in front of theteacher or other classmates to give the students some training in publicspeaking For example, one student who recorded himself reading “Role A”with the computer reading “Role B,” and a second student who recordedhimself reading “Role B” and the computer reading “Role A” and thesystem can then match the two student recordings to listen to theircombined dialogue as if they had read the dialogue together andsimultaneously.

In determining a student's target Fluency rate, it desirable to know atwhat point in the school year the student is then in. A student's targetfluency rate typically is lowest in the fall, rising through the winter,and is highest at the end of the school year, in the spring. However,typically the target rate for the student is lower at the beginning ofthe next school year than it was at the end of the previous school year,as most students decrease in fluency rate over the summer break. In thecase of a struggling student, who may be in the fourth grade, forexample, who reads at 65 Words Per Minute (WPM), it is difficult to knowwhether the student is reading at a typical middle-second-grade level ora typical early-third-grade level since the target rate for both is 65WPM. However, if one knows the time of year that the student achievedthat rate, then the determination is facilitated. The training systemidentifies the time of year that the student achieved that rate,automatically matches the rate and calculations, and can provide agrade-level equivalency score. The determination is even more greatlycomplicated, however, if the student does not happen to score a ratethat is identical to one of the target rates, but is somewhere on thesliding scale between those rates. A sliding scale matching everypossible score at every time of year has been constructed, so that thetraining system can automatically make the appropriate rate/time of yearcalculations for each reading.

The training system may provide highlighted pacing for fluency practice.The highlighting moves along the text, providing pacing for the student.The student practices his or her reading, gradually working his or herfluency rate up to match the rate of the pacer. Of note, however, isthat—for each student target rate (which varies according to targetskill level)—the pacer is available at three different rates that thestudent can select, so the student can adjust the rate as he or she isworking up toward, and past, the target rate at his or hernext-applicable goal.

The training system may include a scoring method that ensures that thestudent's time and effort is being used efficiently and appropriatelyand includes certain early-evaluation points. Most training hasidentified certain performance criteria as instructional levels, masterylevels and frustration levels. However, there is a risk that a studentwill be working at a level that is much too easy or way too hard forhim, yet the training will not be able to determine this fact until around has been completed and a score calculated. To avoid this problem,the training system has built in “early bail-out triggers,” “earlyregression” triggers and “early acceleration” triggers. So, for example,if very early in an instructional cycle, a student is scoring very, verypoorly and hits the “early bail-out trigger,” the instructionalactivities will be stopped, the student will be returned to theinstructional/teaching area where he will again be presented with theteaching portion of the unit, and then the student will again begin theinstructional activities. When the student reaches again the “earlybail-out trigger” spot in the cycle and his performance has notmaterially improved, the instructional activities will again be stoppedand the student will be relocated to an easier/more supported level ofactivity. Then, later in the instructional flow (assuming the studenthas made it past the early bail-out point), the training system mayagain do an early check at the “early regression trigger.” If thestudent's performance has in fact improved enough to pass the earlybail-out trigger, but not enough to make it past the early regressiontrigger and continue through the whole cycle, then the student will berelocated to an easier/more supported level of activity. Also, at thispoint, the training system will check for early exceptional performance,so will also serve as the early acceleration trigger. If, for example,the student has scored 99% correct up to that point, the student will beaccelerated to the next level immediately, rather than have the studentcomplete the entire cycle at a level that is much too easy for him.Thus, the training system continuously adjusts the training provided toeach student based on each student's scores during the training. Inaddition, the training system may evaluate the student's progress basedon accuracy/correctness of answers, but also on consistency so that astudent must not only demonstrate mastery (that is, a “passing” score),but he must demonstrate it on multiple occasions during differentsessions indicating that the student has learned the concept and notjust maintained it in short term memory.

When the system selects a particular educational training exercise asdescribed above, the system may use an adaptive unit that adaptivelyselects the particular educational training exercise meaning that thesystem adapts to the skills or areas of needed training. When theadaptive unit selects a particular educational training exercise, itselects the particular educational training exercise based on one ormore of the subject matter, skill level, presentation format andpresentation context of the particular educational training exercisebased on a characteristic of a student.

The training system also may assign variable points for a correctanswer, with more important questions (that is, questions that are moredirectly related to the skill or strategy being taught) receiving morepoints, and less important questions receiving fewer points. Thisweighting system permits the training program to provide more and morediverse approaches to instruction for the student, without having thestudent's performance/mastery scores being too heavily influenced awayfrom the most telling areas of student response.

Moreover, the points system may also be weighted to permit the studentto receive more points on the first attempt, and fewer and then fewerpoints for subsequent attempts. Additional bonus points may be allocatedto a student for correct answers on a first attempt at a first round orlevel of play.

Under certain conditions, points for a certain response level can beearned only once. For example, if a student earned 0.5 points for acorrect response that was his third attempt, he may see that questionagain in a subsequent round. However, having already earned 0.5 pointsfor a third-attempt correct answer, if he answered the questioncorrectly in a subsequent round on the third attempt, no further pointswould be awarded. However, if he answered the challenge correctly on hisfirst attempt in a subsequent round, for that response he would stillearn the full (for example) 2.0 points that one receives for a correctanswer to that question on a first attempt.

The training system may also include doze sentences (a sentence ispresented to the student wherein the sentence has a blank space in itand the student is supposed to identify the word that is the best choiceto fill in the blank) training. In the training system, all of the wordsthat are presented as possibly being inserted into the blank will makesense in that sentence so that it is impossible to determine which isthe best word to use in that sentence only from reading andunderstanding that sentence. Rather, the student must read andunderstand the entire paragraph in order to determine which word is thecorrect choice, as only one word will be appropriate given the contentcontained or implied in the paragraph as a whole.

The training system may also provide a typing interface for trainingthat requires typing (which may be turned off by the teacher.). Manystudents will not be proficient with a keyboard so that the trainingsystem provides an option for an onscreen keyboard where the virtualkeys are shown in alphabetical (rather than QWERTY) order, making theletters easier for students to locate quickly.

At each unit of instruction there are multiple levels of trainingoffering different levels of instructional support. A student typicallystarts at level 1 unless a different setting has been established forthe student. Level 1 provides a moderate level of support, typicallyincluding audio supports, embedded links, definitions and othersupports. If the student's performance is below the appropriateinstructional level, the student will be bumped down to a lower level(e.g., Level-1), where more supports are offered, making the initiallearning process of the same material easier. For example, at Level-1,the program's responses to the student's answers are typically“Snap-Back” responses. Snap-Back response means that the studentreceives immediate feedback after each individual response, and infact—in the case of dragging an answer to an incorrect location—theincorrectly dragged response will immediately “snap-back” to itsoriginal position. While the response will register to the system as anincorrect answer, the dragged item will not be accepted in that space,and the student will immediately be invited to try another choice. Incontrast, at a higher level (Level 1), responses become “Batch”responses. In other words, the level of challenge is increased becausethe student puts forth all of his responses to the applicablechallenge(s), and when he is ready he “submits” his choices. Only thendoes the program evaluate and respond to the student's choices—againproviding immediate feedback but to the batch of answers (and perhapsstill offering the student another chance to respond to the misseditems). Higher levels of training include additional increasedchallenges, offering little support and adding time challenges, therebyrequiring the student to demonstrate independent mastery, often undertimed conditions.

Other variables that are controlled in order to manage difficulty atvarious levels include (i) the number of questions presented at a time(ranging from only one question to many), (ii) the amount of time thestudent has to respond, (iii) the number of tries the student ispermitted to have to correctly answer a question, and (iv) embeddedtextual supports (such as links to definitions, sample uses,translations, etc.).

The training system may provide many levels of assessment wherein theseassessments are used to place a student, identify particular areas ofweakness, establish remediation and instructional paths, provide ongoingprogress monitoring, etc. While assessment is important, it also isimportant not to perform excessive assessment on students, particularlystudents who are reluctant, struggling and failing readers since theyalready have challenges with motivation, self-esteem, self-image, etc.and assessment identifies the relevant points of failure of the student.In order to provide appropriate assessment without demoralizing astudent, the training system at certain levels of assessment asks thestudent which words (in the example of vocabulary training) that thestudent wishes to be tested on wherein the student is shown the wordsand is invited to indicate which words he thinks he already knows. Then,if none are marked by the student, no assessment will be delivered. Ifhe indicates that he already knows two of the words, then only thestudent's knowledge of those two words will be tested. This method meansthat the student is determining what level of assessment is appropriatefor him and, the assessment, if any, that is then delivered is beingdelivered at his suggestion; and he has a reasonable chance of having anassessment that in fact he can perform well on. This method not onlyempowers the student and increases motivation, but it also prompts thestudent to ask himself “What do I know already?” Many reluctant readersknow more than they think they do, but often fail to access thisknowledge. This process of asking themselves what information theyalready know is itself beneficial training. Finally, this processenables the system to quickly determine the extent to which thestudent's sense of what he knows actually matches his demonstratedknowledge (in either direction).

Through an initial reading comprehension assessment and placementfunction, the system may place a student at an appropriate startinglevel in the program. Additional assessments are used to determinewhether the student has any gaps in core knowledge at levels earlierthan the reading level at which he has just been placed. While astudent's reading comprehension may be at a certain level, thatstudent's mastery of particular reading-related skills may be at a lowerlevel, or have meaningful gaps in them. For example, a student may beplaced at the third grade reading level, but the program may determinethat there are still some key second-grade phonics skills where thestudent is deficient. The system's assessments are specifically linkedto the system's instructional scope and sequence, such that if anyparticular gaps are identified through these assessments, the programwill automatically generate a remediation program for that student,comprised of a remedial path linking only those aspects of earlierinstructional units that the assessment indicates are studentdeficiencies. Once this path is complete, then the student will moveforward with instructional units starting at the reading comprehensionlevel at which he was placed.

The training system may also provide high frequency phase training.Research has shown that the first 50-100 high frequency words mayaccount for as much as one-third of all the words an elementary studentmay read in print, and some say that roughly 50% of all such text iscomprised of the first roughly 100-200 most frequent words. Accordingly,it is important for students to become familiar with and readilyrecognize the most frequent words in the English language. (Someexisting programs teach 100-200 of the most frequent words while thetraining system provides training for the 500 most frequent words in theEnglish language.) Some existing systems allege that they train studentsin the area of high frequency phrases, but these phrases are really onlyphrases that have been constructed out of the lists of high-frequencywords described above. The odds that many—if any—of these phrasesactually occur frequently in the English language is remote at best.

The training system, however, has applied select research from arelatively new area of study known as Phraseology in which n-gramphrases (an n-gram is a phrase comprised of “n” words) that occur mostfrequently in the English language have been identified. The trainingsystem has taken n-grams ranging from three to six words in length,ranked them in order of frequency and filtered them for grade-levelappropriateness. Accordingly, all of the high-frequency phrases in thisprogram are in fact phrases that occur frequently in natural, Englishlanguage, that students are likely to encounter, and are presentedaccording to their frequency values and complexity (in terms of lengthand word choice). Thus, the training system provides the student withactual high frequency phrase training with phrases that actually arehigh-frequency phrases (not phrases artificially constructed for theprogram from high-frequency words).

The training system and method described above may also provide theuser/student with incentives for being engaged in the training so that,even if the student/user does not answer questions correctly, thestudent/user stills receives positive feedback from the training system.The positive feedback may include awards and accolades. In oneembodiment, the training system may include tiered points system inwhich the user/student may receive a number of points (for example 10points) for being engaged, but not providing the correct answer, ahigher number of points (for example 20 points) for providing thecorrect answer but not on the first attempt and a higher number ofpoints (for example 30 points) for providing the correct answer on thefirst attempt. In this manner, the training system provides somepositive feedback for a user/student even when the user/student may beunable to correctly answer questions. The training system may furtherinclude a rate of point inflation/deflation that can be adjusted asitems that can be purchased change or evolve. For example, the trainingsystem can increase/decrease the point value evenly across the pointssystem (how many points a user receives for each activity), the systemcan increase/decrease the number of points it takes to convert into agem (gem purchase inflation/deflation) and/or the system can change thenumber of points for an individual activity/group ofactivities/exercises compared to the other exercises having the samerate of change (so that some activities become more/less valuablerelative to the other activities.

In addition to the points system described above, the training systemmay provide the points for positive feedback, but then also permit theuser to convert a predetermined number of points into gems wherein thegems are more difficult to obtain than the points. In one embodiment,each user/student may have strict gem conversion rules so that it ismore difficult for each user/student to acquire the gems that can beused to purchase items for an avatar as described below in more detail.Thus, the items that can be purchased with the gems are motivational forthe user/student since the gems are harder to acquire. In addition tothe avatar items described below, the gems can also be used to purchasereal world items (such as music or books or clothes) or coupons (such asa coupon to Barnes & Noble or an electronic coupon) wherein the realworld items cost a larger number of gems than the avatar items andtherefore are more sought after and valuable since they are real worlditems and have external market value. The training system may alsopermit users of the system to trade purchased “virtual items” with otherusers using the training system (to create a virtual market) so thatthere is a community of users of the training system that can interactwith each other.

The training system and method may also include a graphical userinterface in which each user/student can create/choose an avatar thatrepresents the user/student in an virtual environment created by thegraphical user interface. The avatar may have various differentattributes that a user/student can select for his/her avatar, such asthe clothes of the avatar, the gender of the avatar, the race of theavatar, the body type of the avatar, a decoration/furnishing for thehouse/room of the avatar in the virtual environment, a vehicle of theavatar in the virtual environment (such as a bicycle, automobile,motorcycle, etc.), a pet of the avatar in the virtual environment, etc.so that the user/student can customize the appearance of the avatar.Much like a video game in which the user has a character that theycontrol within the game, the training system allows the user to controlthe actions of the avatar within the virtual environment. The virtualenvironment is shown in Appendix A which is incorporated herein byreference. In particular, Figures A-1 shows the splash screen of theproduct. Figure A-2 shows a screen in which the user of the trainingsystem begins to customize his/her avatar by selecting the gender of theavatar. Figure A-3 illustrates a screen in which the user can customizethe features of the avatar (in this example a male avatar. Figure A-4illustrates the screen displayed to the user after the avatar has beencustomized in which the avatar directs the user to do an assessment ofthe skills of the user. Figure A-5 illustrates an example of theassessment exercise presented to the user. Figure A-6 illustrates ascreen presented to the user once the training system has determined theappropriate training for the user based on the assessment. Figures A-7to A-12 show different themes (Going West for example) and the subtheme(the smaller circles) and the units (boxes at the bottom) that areprovided to the user by the training system. The line in these figuresillustrates the progress of the user in the particular theme/sub-themeand the boxes illustrate the progress of the user in the units (with yetto be completed units shown as locks). Figure A-13 illustrates a screenpresented to the user for a training exercise. In the example shown inFigure A-13, the system is set up to permit the user to select thetraining/assessment to perform. Alternatively, the screen may also showthe “phonics” button for a particular user who is being directed to thephonics training Figure A-14 shows the phonics training being selectedby the user and Figure A-15 illustrates an example of an initial screenfor a particular phonics training which is long and short vowels. FigureA-16 illustrates an example of an instructional screen for the long andshort vowels training Figure A-17 illustrates an example of a vocabularytraining unit of the system. The system permit the user to selectwhether or not the avatar is shown or how much of the avatar is shownusing the rectangular controls in the bottom right corner. The systemalso displays a number of points earned by the user (7845 in thisexample) and a gem icon that, when selected, shows the number of gemsaccumulated by the user as shown in Figure A-18.

Figure A-19 illustrates an example of the user interface for aparticular game that is part of the training system. Figure A-20 is anexample of a points and gems user interface that permits the user toconvert points into gems. Figures A-21, A-22 and A-25 illustrateexamples of a virtual storefront of the training system where the user(using his/her avatar) can show for items for the avatar and pay forthem using the gems. Figure A-23 illustrates a user interface for theinside of a store shown in the virtual storefront where the user canselect items for the avatar as shown in Figure A-24 wherein the detailsof each item and the cost of each item (in number of gems) is shown tothe user. The user can then purchase an item from the store.

Figure A-26, A-28 and A-29 illustrate the virtual environment for theavatar including a bedroom (Figure A-26) and house/garage (Figure A-28)and a room (Figure A-29) wherein the items purchased by the user for theavatar are placed into these areas. As shown in Figure A-27, the usercan then select from the items in these areas for use by the avatar suchas the different pants shown in Figure A-27.

Figure A-30 to A-32 illustrate an example of the different male avatars(with different races) that can be generated by the training systemwhile Figures A-33 to A-34 show the female avatars. Finally, FiguresA-35 and A-36 illustrate additional examples of the avatars that can becustomized by the user in the training system.

For example, as part of the positive feedback provided by the trainingsystem, the training system may award the one or more gems for variousactivities in the training system and then user can then use the gems tobuy information and/or items for the avatar, such as a different hairstyle, a cell phone, different clothes, etc. The virtual environment ofthe training system may thus include a store for the avatar items (fromwhich the avatar may purchase items) wherein the contents of the storemay be adjusted based on the shopping options (selected by theuser/student or assigned to the user/student), the gender of the avataror other characteristics. The store may provide a user/student withadditional incentives to excel in the training systems exercises. Thevirtual environment may also include an avatar environment, such as ahouse, bedroom, etc. of the avatar for the particular user/student(customizable by the particular user/student) wherein the informationand items purchased for the avatar may be placed into the avatarenvironment. For example, when a user purchases a pair of pants forhis/her avatar, those pants may appear in the closet of the bedroom ofthe avatar in the virtual environment so that the user/student can thenselect those pants to be worn by the avatar. The training system mayalso track the characteristics of the avatar chosen by each user/studentas well as the information/items purchased for the avatar since thisdata can be used to analyze the interests of the user/student and maythen be used to provide targeted additional information to theuser/student.

The education training system may also provide a spiraling masterychecks that automatically integrates into current instruction contentpreviously mastered by the student earlier in that level, in one or moreprevious levels or across one or more previously mastered units. Thesystem may also, if the student demonstrates that he/she has notretained mastery of the previously-mastered materials, dynamicallyre-integrate the previously-mastered content into the currentinstructional program.

The system may also allow a student to construct his/her own fluencytexts. The system may present the student with pre-existing texts, whichmay be pre-assembled, partially assembled or completely disassembled.The pre-existing texts have corresponding fluent-readings audioassociated with them. The system may also enable the student tore-arrange pieces of the text, including phrases, clauses, sentences,stanzas, etc. to create an individualized text of his/her own creation.The system may also maintain the audio files associated with eachportion of the text so that, once the “new” passage has been assembledby the student, the student can listen to a reading by the computer ofthe new text he/she has created. The system may also present a fluentreading of the new passage that serves as a model for the student, andthe student is then able to practice reading the new text him/herself.The system may also allow the student can record himself reading the newtext he/she has created, and can listen to his/her own reading andcompare it to the modeled reading by the computer.

While the foregoing has been with reference to a particular embodimentof the invention, it will be appreciated by those skilled in the artthat changes in this embodiment may be made without departing from theprinciples and spirit of the invention as defined by the appended claim.

We claim:
 1. A computer-implemented method for vocabulary training, themethod comprising: determining, by the processor-implemented instructionmodule, frequency scores for vocabulary words in a language according tohow frequently the vocabulary words appear in the language; determining,by the processor-implemented instruction module, utility scores for thevocabulary words according to how broadly the vocabulary words are usedin the language; categorizing, by the processor-implemented instructionmodule, the vocabulary words by grouping the vocabulary words into aplurality of groups based on the determined frequency scores and rankingthe vocabulary words in each group based on the determined utilityscores; generating, by the processor-implemented instruction module, avocabulary training exercise to test a student's vocabulary knowledge,wherein the vocabulary training exercise is generated by selecting aplurality of vocabulary words from the plurality of groups based on acombination of the frequency scores and utility scores; and presenting,by the processor-implemented instruction module, the vocabulary trainingexercise to the student.
 2. The computer-implemented method of claim 1,wherein determining the utility scores of the vocabulary words includesdetermining the extent in which the vocabulary words are used indifferent subject areas, wherein the different subject areas include oneor more textual categories including one or more categories of science,history, math, current events, politics, fiction, or non-fiction, ormedia categories including one or more categories of books, letters,poems, newspapers, stories, or lyrics.
 3. The computer-implementedmethod of claim 1, wherein generating the vocabulary training exerciseincludes determining a pool of vocabulary words based on the student'sneed with vocabulary words that have a higher frequency score or ahigher utility score deemed to be vocabulary words that should bemastered earlier than vocabulary words with one or more of a lowerfrequency score or a lower utility score.
 4. The computer-implementedmethod of claim 1, further comprising, in generating the vocabularytraining exercise, if the student already knows a large amount ofvocabulary words with a particular frequency score or a particularutility score, the vocabulary training exercise is generated byselecting vocabulary words for the student that have a lower frequencyscore or a lower utility score.
 5. The computer-implemented method ofclaim 1, further comprising, in generating the vocabulary trainingexercise, if the student knows very few vocabulary words with aparticular frequency score or a particular utility score, the vocabularytraining exercise is generated by selecting vocabulary words for thestudent that have a higher frequency score or a higher utility score. 6.The computer-implemented method of claim 1, further comprising:analyzing, by the processor-implemented instruction module, results fromvocabulary training exercise in connection with vocabulary words thatthe student already knows to make reasoned judgments on what othervocabulary words the student is likely to know based on the frequencyscores or the utility scores of the other vocabulary words.
 7. Acomputer-implemented method for vocabulary training, the methodcomprising: determining, by the processor-implemented instructionmodule, utility scores for vocabulary words in a language according tohow broadly the vocabulary words are used in the language; categorizing,by the processor-implemented instruction module, the vocabulary words bygrouping and ranking the vocabulary words into a plurality of groupsbased on the determined utility scores; generating, by theprocessor-implemented instruction module, a vocabulary training exerciseto test a student's vocabulary knowledge, wherein the vocabularytraining exercise is generated by selecting a plurality of vocabularywords from the plurality of groups based on the utility scores; andpresenting, by the processor-implemented instruction module, thevocabulary training exercise to the student.
 8. The computer-implementedmethod of claim 7, wherein determining the utility scores of thevocabulary words includes determining the extent in which the vocabularywords are used in different subject areas, wherein the different subjectareas include one or more textual categories including one or morecategories of science, history, math, current events, politics, fiction,or non-fiction, or media categories including one or more categories ofbooks, letters, poems, newspapers, stories, or lyrics.
 9. Thecomputer-implemented method of claim 7, wherein determining the utilityscores of the vocabulary words includes assigning pervasiveness valuesto the vocabulary words.
 10. The computer-implemented method of claim 9,wherein the vocabulary training exercise is generated by selecting theplurality of vocabulary words from the plurality of groups based on thepervasiveness values.
 11. The computer-implemented method of claim 7,wherein generating the vocabulary training exercise includes determininga pool of vocabulary words based on the student's need with vocabularywords that have a higher utility score deemed to be vocabulary wordsthat should be mastered earlier than vocabulary words with a lowerutility score.
 12. The computer-implemented method of claim 7, furthercomprising, in generating the vocabulary training exercise, if thestudent already knows a large amount of vocabulary words with aparticular utility score, the vocabulary training exercise is generatedby selecting vocabulary words for the student that have a lower utilityscore.
 13. The computer-implemented method of claim 7, furthercomprising, in generating the vocabulary training exercise, if thestudent knows very few vocabulary words with a particular utility score,the vocabulary training exercise is generated by selecting vocabularywords for the student that have a higher utility score.
 14. Thecomputer-implemented method of claim 7, further comprising: analyzing,by the processor-implemented instruction module, results from vocabularytraining exercise in connection with vocabulary words that the studentalready knows to make reasoned judgments on what other vocabulary wordsthe student is likely to know based on the utility scores of the othervocabulary words.
 15. A system for vocabulary training, the systemcomprising: a computing device; and a server, including a memory havinginstructions for execution on one or more processors, wherein theinstructions, when executed by the one or more processors, cause theserver to: determine, by the one or more processors executing one ormore processor-implemented instruction modules, frequency scores forvocabulary words in a language according to how frequently thevocabulary words appear in the language; determine, by the one or moreprocessors executing one or more processor-implemented instructionmodules, utility scores for the vocabulary words according to howbroadly the vocabulary words are used in the language; categorize, bythe one or more processors executing one or more processor-implementedinstruction modules, the vocabulary words by grouping the vocabularywords into a plurality of groups based on the determined frequencyscores and ranking the vocabulary words in each group based on thedetermined utility scores; generate, by the one or more processorsexecuting one or more processor-implemented instruction modules, avocabulary training exercise to test a student's vocabulary knowledge,wherein the vocabulary training exercise is generated by selecting aplurality of vocabulary words from the plurality of groups based on acombination of the frequency scores and utility scores; and present, bythe one or more processors executing the one or moreprocessor-implemented instruction modules, the vocabulary trainingexercise to the student by displaying the vocabulary training exerciseon the computing device.
 16. The system of claim 15, wherein theinstructions of the server, when executed by the one or more processorsto determine the utility scores of the vocabulary words further includeinstructions to determine the extent in which the vocabulary words areused in different subject areas, wherein the different subject areasinclude one or more textual categories including one or more categoriesof science, history, math, current events, politics, fiction, ornon-fiction, or media categories including one or more categories ofbooks, letters, poems, newspapers, stories, or lyrics.
 17. The system ofclaim 15, wherein the instructions of the server, when executed by theone or more processors to generate the vocabulary training exercisefurther include instructions to determine a pool of vocabulary wordsbased on the student's need with vocabulary words that have a higherfrequency score or a higher utility score deemed to be vocabulary wordsthat should be mastered earlier than vocabulary words with one or moreof a lower frequency score or a lower utility score.